


the rest of our lives will be just like Christmas

by Shoedonym



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 05:22:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13160142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shoedonym/pseuds/Shoedonym
Summary: By all rights, Emma Swan should hate Christmas. Except that she doesn't. And nothing can ruin the holiday for her, not even when she ends up with far more guests than she was expecting, or when she loses her Christmas bonus–Not even meeting Killian Jones can throw her off





	the rest of our lives will be just like Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eirabach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eirabach/gifts).



.

_the rest of our lives will be just like Christmas_

 

.

Inspired by real events. Several of them.

.

 

By all rights, Emma Swan should hate Christmas.

There should be a chip on her shoulder the size of a manger and a wound in her heart nestled by the very G major chord of ‘Jingle Bells’ itself. She should have been able to out-grinch The Grinch and bah humbug with the best of Ebenezer Scrooge – and yet, she doesn’t. She used to feel that way when she was younger, when the fact that Christmas was all about that ever elusive concept of family and home, and, well, she had never had one of those.

Had hoped, had wished, had thought it impossible.

A thing as fickle as the promise of a White Christmas.

But now, every December the tinsel comes out, the wreath, the stockings, all pulled down from the top of the hallway cupboard–

All thanks to a pair of hazel eyes crinkled into chubby cheeks; thanks to Henry.

It’s impossibly hard at first. When Henry is only a few months old, squawking and not sleeping, which makes her squawk and not sleep. Emma is begrudgingly living off of welfare at the time and all they have is each other, not enough money to buy him more than some small stuffed penguin in a Santa suit from the two-dollar shop. But he clings to it for months afterwards, chews the pompom off the hat when his teeth come in and she thinks that’s when it changed, when like the Grinch her Christmas heart grew three times its normal size.

It wouldn’t take a genius to figure it out, she doesn’t need some crackpot psychoanalyst telling her the ‘who’s and ‘why’s of what it is that changed the holiday season for her. She simply had no family before, and what was the point of it all without family?

Without someone to buy presents for?

Buying gifts quickly becomes Emma’s favourite part, the one thing she gets right every year.

Because Christmas never runs smoothly, or how she wants it to. Emma always has these grand plans to spend hours doing craft with Henry, or taking him pine cone hunting, fulfilling baking aspirations even though she’s never been hugely into baking. There always seems to be a million and one things to do and everything always gets in the way of everything else.

And this year there’s even more on her plate.

So, it’s probably a good thing that she loves Christmas as much as she does when one freezing cold December three things happen that send Emma Swan into a bit of a tailspin: when she ends up with far more guests on Christmas day that she was expecting, when she loses her Christmas bonus–

And when she meets Killian Jones.

\--

She meets him on the day she realises she doesn’t own a roasting pan.

The older Henry gets the more determined she is that Christmas has to be bigger and brighter and more cinnamon-y than the last, and so, on a whim, she had offered to host Christmas lunch.

Which she had never done before.

Which might have been an enormous mistake because December has well and truly begun and Emma’s not a hundred percent sure what that entails. All she has to go off is what she’s experienced with Mary Margaret and David the last two years, the festive suggestions of Hollywood, and the various Christmassy requests of her six-year-old.

Which is why there’s an enormous stack of candy canes sitting in their pantry.

_(“Of course we need this many, Mom. How else will we get any enjoy-mint out of Christmas.”_

_“Ha ha. I’m really beginning to regret giving you that joke book for your birthday, kiddo.”)_

But one thing she does know is that to cook the turkey what she needs is a roasting pan.

It’s only the first of December but even this early in the season the shops are a mess. Christmas carols are blasting on the overhead sound system with some unnecessarily upbeat rendition of ‘Silent Night’, the storefront displays are all up with fake snow and gaudy tinsel and seasonal puns she’ll have to steer Henry away from.

Emma loves it.

It’s a waste of money, Emma’s not blind to all of that, to the consumerist and wasteful nature of the holiday – of any holiday – but she has a family, she has someone to buy for and so she finds it incredibly hard to mind.

(She’s already bought three small toys for Henry and a little something for David from her car to the homewares place.)

The one thing that does irritate her about shopping at this time of year are the number of people that try to stop her mid-doing-something-else to sell her things. She barely looks at them, isn’t interested in being manipulated or sold into whatever sky-diving adventure gift package they’re flogging. Unfortunately, she sees this one particular guy tilting his body towards hers as she nears their mid-mall-stall and accidentally makes eye contact.

Mistake.

He thinks he’s got an easy target, and she’s too late to pretend she hasn’t seen him, her arms being laden with things are not enough to deter someone probably on commission.

“Sorry, not interested,” Emma tries instead before he can start on his great marketing spiel about God knows what. But this man doesn’t interpret it as the dismissal she wants it to be, stepping a little bit closer as she approaches.

“You don’t even know what it is I’m selling.”

She shouldn’t have engaged, should just have kept mumbling sorry and headed back to her car with the heavy bags jingling from her fingers.

“Okay, fine, what is it?” Emma asks, reasoning that she can at least claim she definitely has no need of whatev–

“A calendar of Storybrooke’s finest and topless firemen holding kittens.”

Definitely not what she was expecting him to say.

And he says it without flinching, unabashedly, with an eyebrow cocked up and everything.

“A calendar of topless firemen holding kittens,” Emma slowly repeats, her eyebrows raising dryly to match his.

It’s then she takes a look behind him to see the local volunteer fire service have set up a stall to raise money right in front of the escalator to the carpark. There are a few other men (and one woman) in the middle of talking to various people, everyone looking far more interested in purchasing one than she is. Emma gets the impression they’re all hoping the photos inside are as good looking as the people trying to sell them.

This is apparently how they’re trying to appeal to the masses.

(It’s probably working.)

“Aye. Tell me, what month is your birthday?

“What?”

“Your birthday, love, what month is it.”

Emma knows where this is going, the flirtatious look on this guy’s face is almost enough to give it away.

“What so you can flip to it and try and sell me on it based on how toned the guy is?” Emma asks, turning around and heading towards the escalator mid-sentence. “Honestly, does that even work?”

“Did on the last five people I sold it to,” he continues even after she’s stepped onto the moving metal stairs, his voice still calling out to her as she drifts away. “They gave me their numbers, too.”

“I’m sure they did. Still not interested.”

“That’s alright, I love a challenge.”

\--

He’s there the next day when Emma realises she doesn’t own a bean stringer.

And a few days later when there’s a flash sale going on at the electronics store and she figures Henry could use a controller for his PlayStation where the triangle button actually works. Emma finds herself at the shops time and time again throughout the next two weeks, frustratedly forgetting key cooking instruments and gifts for the ever impending Christmas Day.

And each and every time, he – Killian Jones – tries again. A new day, a new tactic.

(And every day she lingers a little longer to chat to him, even though she’s no closer to purchasing a calendar.)

He gives up trying to convince her with the half-naked men and moves on to the kittens, and then onto the plight of the poor under-funded service that is the Storybrooke Fire Department. It doesn’t work, of course. Emma has no need for the calendar, has no need for the flirtatious man that is Killian Jones who is all good looks, English accent and easy charm.

It won’t get him anywhere with her.

She suspects that he worked that out pretty quickly as well, what with the sour way she received his–

_“…perhaps you’d prefer to forego the calendar and have something else fill your stocking, love.”_

_“Let me guess, you’re great in the Santa sack, too?”_

It doesn’t seem to deter him at all, and there’s this traitorous little part of Emma that likes the jesting. Or at the very least, it never occurs to her to use the other carpark and avoid their stall altogether. It’s harmless fun, she argues. And he at least keeps the jokes G rated when she walks by with Henry.

Killian’s also there the day that she loses her Christmas bonus.

Damien Harris: a two-timing son of a bitch with millions of dollars in more than one off-shore account that still made his wife pay for his bail while he disappeared with his latest girlfriend to a nondescript island.

And he’s walking out of the jewellers in broad Storybrooke daylight on December eleventh.

Emma spends a few minutes blending in with the crowds until she’s at least mostly certain it’s him – until she’s at least checked the receding hairline is the same – before she makes her move.

He bolts the moment he notices her eyeing him down.

Dropping what was no doubt an extremely expensive diamond something for his latest fling and pushing people out of his way. Fortunately, the path he clears makes it very easy for Emma to catch up, dumping the stationary she’d bought for Mary Margaret and the novelty shaped ice tray for Elsa at Killian’s feet without explanation as she goes by.

Unfortunately for Emma, Damien Harris is not watching where he’s going. Unfortunately, Damien Harris simply seems to only want to go as the crow flies to his most immediate exit.

Which puts him right in front of the enormous Christmas tree that’s set up in the middle of the building—

And he trips over cables, thick bulky ones that in Emma’s defence should definitely have been secured somewhere or under something or at the very least looked at by Work, Health and Safety.

Because the whole thing comes toppling down:

Christmas tree;

Christmas baubles;

Christmas lights.

And it’s not a tiny tree, and it’s not a tiny mess, glass and bulbs shattering to the ground at Damien Harris’ head. It’s a miracle no one is injured quite honestly, except maybe her skip’s pride. The mall Santa was thankfully on his lunch break and the several people with their phones out to film the debacle while some kid bunking off from school shouted ‘timbeerrrr’ weren’t in the crash zone.

She has no doubt it’ll be on YouTube within the hour.

Emma’s quick to recover from the shock, marching over as things break and chink under her feet to pull the skip off the ground and making sure he knows why she’s wrenching a pair of handcuffs around his wrists. The police come quickly and she’s grateful to be able to palm him off. She’s only just shoving him into the arms of a cop when Killian walks over to them, the rest of the firemen already proving their calendar-worthy muscles by helping with the Christmas carnage.

He’s holding her shopping bags out on the ends of his fingers, swinging them playfully with that same old, easy smirk on his face.

“Oo, you’re a tough lass.”

Emma rolls her eyes as she snatches her bags back from him.

“Yeah, well, I usually try to do it without ruining Christmas…”

“Cop?”

“Bailbondsperson,” she corrects, waiting for the inevitable confusion or look of condescension.

It doesn’t come. And for someone who has been flirting shallowly with her for over a week it’s a bit of a surprise.

“Is this where I tell you that handcuffs are a good look on you?” He’s still smirking, but it’s something different, something that has changed and she’s not entirely sure why destroying a massive tree in a public space is the cause of it.

“Would be incredibly predictable if you did.”

“I would hate to be predictable.”

Emma watches carefully, watching for the change on his face and seeing nothing new there, but knowing something is different. It’s unsettling, the beginnings of an irritation in her fingers.

“Does predictable have to be a bad thing?” Emma begins, thinking out loud more than anything else, talking and distractedly watching as Damien Harris starts arguing with the sheriff. “I dunno, predictable can be…”

“Reassuring?” Killian offers.

“I was going to go with reliable.”

He simply hums at that.

The silence that falls from his hum is new. And that itching is back, twining through her hands but she chalks it up to adrenalin because, well, what else could it be? Emma is halfway through her thoughts when Killian takes a step towards her, effectively cutting her brain off from its quiet consideration.

“Well in that case, feel free to use those handcuffs on me any time you like.”

She should laugh, should roll her eyes or something, but it leaves her feeling nervous, unsettled and not sure why, so instead she leaves, walking around him with a pat to his chest before muttering–

“And there it is.”

\--

Somehow, she’s not covered for the incident.

Somehow, her work can’t (won’t) even cover the cost of the damage. And on top of all that, the universe must be already having a go at her for spending so much on presents because–

She loses her Christmas bonus.

Emma still gets paid for bringing him in, but the bonus she would have got has to go towards paying the company that own the mall so that they can buy a new tree and all its accompanying paraphernalia.

On top of that she hasn’t had a chance to organise what she’s actually going to cook on Christmas Day, what she is going to need Mary Margaret to bring–

“Emma, it’s not that bad.”

Emma lifts her head from its pathetic place on the breakfast bench at Mary Margaret’s place to glare at her friend before banging her head back on her folded arms. She’s feeling incredibly sorry for herself, worrying herself sick about having to cut back on expenses in the new year and whether or not this will cost her when it comes to case opportunities at work.

It’s a weight on her shoulders, and exactly what she doesn’t need this time of year.

“Okay, so, back to Christmas. How many people are coming?”

Emma doesn’t bother to lift her head to answer the question, raising a hand and lifting a finger each time she mentally counts them off.

“Five,” Mary Margaret voices as she reads Emma’s hand. “And is one of those people Killian?”

Emma’s head shoots up at that.

The word is startling enough on its own but it’s Mary Margaret’s intonation, the slow increase in pitch followed by what her friend assumes is subtly.

(It’s really not subtlety.)

“Who?”

“Henry might have mentioned something at school today about your friend Killian, and well… Emma, I love you, but you don’t have any friends.”

“I have friends!”

Emma knows her defensive response is not going to end this conversation and so turns to watch Henry talking animatedly to David over on their couch, thinking carefully about what she’s going to ask.

Because anything she says to Mary Margaret about this will open up a verbal minefield, for the simple reason that she’s not as realistic as Emma is about anyone who might show interest in her.

(Mary Margaret would say she’s the realist.)

“What did he say about him?”

“We were reading Peter Pan and talking about disabilities when he mentioned you had a friend – Killian – who only had one hand.”

Sometimes, there are serious disadvantages to your best friend being your son’s teacher.

Emma nods to herself, greatly relieved that that’s all Henry had said, and grateful that he hasn’t read anything more into her shopping mall flirtation. She grabs a spoon from in front of her, dipping it into the gingerbread batter Mary Margaret is stirring and promptly stuffing it into her mouth.

Mary Margaret gives her a look as she chews, one that isn’t ‘don’t pinch from the batter’ but one that is more ‘spill, Emma Swan’.

“Let’s just say Henry is very liberal with his use of the word friend. He’s a guy I know who volunteers at the local fire station, I seem to run into him a lot.” Emma tells her, through golden syrup and other half bitten bits of batter, becoming a little sourer when her friend doesn’t let up. “Don’t give me that look, Mary Margaret, you know I’m not interested in dating anybody.”

The look recedes from Mary Margaret’s face as she goes back to adding more ginger to her batter.

“And is this guy you know from the fire station coming to Christmas?”

“Definitely not.”

\--

It’s barely a few winter-nipped days later that Henry falls sick.

It hits him hard and quickly, overnight and out of school the next morning (much to the polite gripe of the school office employee on the other end of the phone asking her not to send him to school tomorrow).

Emma is surprised by just how unwell he is, he’s limp and wobbly and sniffling by the time she picks him up, so much so that she decides to drive him straight to the doctor’s. Fortunately, they’re in and out quickly, the doctor’s surgery being mostly filled with various geriatrics at this time of day for their regularly appointed check-ups means they don’t have to wait long.

It’s just a cold, most likely a twenty-four-hour to forty-eight-hour bug that’s going around.

It isn’t until she gets to the shops to pick up his prescription that she realises she’s got a bit of a problem. Henry is too heavy, he’s like a deadweight clinging to her and making it beyond difficult to weave through the Christmas masses. It’s right on lunch time too and the mall is filled with people and moving Henry about like this when he’s so nauseous is not doing him or her, or the hasty lunch break shoppers around them, any favours. There’s no way she’s leaving him in the car when he’s like this, though, with a fever and a blocked nose to boot.

And then she sees Killian.

“Hey, can I ask you a huge favour?”

He’s in the middle of irritating someone, of fanning a fellow fireman with one of the calendars as he scowls at him. And yet when she calls out to him Killian still greets her with that familiar grin, the one that promptly disappears the moment he sees Henry clutching to her sadly.

“What is it, love?”

“I have to pick up a few things and run to the drug store but Henry’s really unwell and I don’t think I should be dragging him around with me and— “

“Leave him here.”

They both know it’s what she’s leading up to but she really appreciates that he’s beaten her to the punch.

“Are you sure?”

“Aye, we’ve got a few chairs over here— “

“Henry, you remember Killian? Are you okay if I leave you with him for five minutes?”

Henry nods weakly before she drops him gently into a chair, before looking to Killian once again with an apology sitting in her eyes as she grips his arm in thanks.

“Go, Swan, it’s no bother,” Killian encourages, tilting his head away to make Emma leave.

“Five minutes, I promise.”

Five minutes turns into half an hour.

The queue at the drug store is ridiculous, all the old people from every doctor’s surgery in town must be picking up their new prescriptions from this one store, taking their sweet time to argue with the poor heavily pregnant woman behind the counter who has to reassure them that yes she’s sure it’s warfarin in the container, no she hasn’t mislabelled it. Then it’s a mad dash to buy some ginger ale and a few other things that she knows will comfort Henry for when they (eventually) get home.

So maybe half an hour is more like forty-five.

However long it is, when she finally makes it back, Henry is lying asleep on the ground, nestled amongst a make-shift bed of what looks like the scarves and jumpers of every fireman there. But he looks alright, sick but no worse for wear with Killian sitting down on the floor with him, his heels crossed at the ankles.

She must be wearing a guilty look, because Killian looks like he is about to placate her before she’s even standing before him.

It’s only that look that shuts her up, Emma choosing to bend to her haunches instead to run her fingers through Henry’s hair, fingertips burning cold against the heat of his fever.

Killian’s gaze drifts between them as ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ starts blasting around them and when Henry doesn’t react at all to the loud interlude, Emma’s heart twinges a little. At being rushed for time, at her son feeling so sorry for himself, flustered with having to leave Henry in Killian’s hands at all.

(Well, Killian’s hand.)

She’s not very good at receiving help (especially when it comes to Henry) even now, even still; it leaves her feeling disjointed, guarded in a way she’d really rather she wasn’t. Especially over something so simple as this.

“I’d’ve been back sooner except there are far too many old people in this town who insist on getting their blood thinners before their afternoon nana nap.”

Somehow, despite the sharp rising of her hackles, he manages to convince her to let him carry Henry to her car. Emma can feel her dissentience to the whole thing increasing as they weave through shoppers, as they weave through cars. Henry only protests a little to being moved, but Emma has seen him do this before and is sure that sick though he definitely is, he’s hamming it up a little bit to reap the benefits.

He’s so rarely sick that she lets him.

Her little yellow bug is easily spotted and she throws the shopping on the floor in the back, pulling the chair forward so Henry can be slipped through. And with Henry safely – and soundly asleep – on the backseat, Emma shuts the car door only to lean against it.

She’s not entirely sure what to make of the expression on Killian’s face. She knows what it means, what it says, and what it wants – but she doesn’t know what she wants to do with it.

Like he’s surprised she left Henry with him at all.

(And she really doesn’t want to have to tell him it was just a gut feeling, a torrid twist she doesn’t know how to explain.)

“Thank you,” Emma tells him instead and she means it, her arms crossed against her chest (a stance that tries to keep her from lashing out for the help more than anything else).

“Any time, Emma. He’s a good lad.”

“Yeah he is, isn’t he?” Emma whispers back, fondly looking over her shoulder to see if Henry is still asleep. Emma should get back in the car because the weather is beginning to turn foul, a nip in the breeze telling her it’s definitely time to upgrade to her even woollier socks as the grey day turns greyer.

“He’s lucky to have a mother like you.”

Killian’s words startle her a little bit. Not the compliment itself, he’s been worming flattery and accolades into most of their exchanges, all as some sort of way of bonding with her.

It startles her because it’s so genuine, this tone in the timbre of his words that’s so regarding stopping her in her non-literal tracks. It’s written all over his face – that thick restless thing that has recently snuck between them – and even with neither of them addressing it they seem to be talking about it; letting it in to sweep through them like the breeze that sends a shiver down Emma’s spine.

So, Emma does what she does best.

“I overheard him the other night praying to Santa,” she begins, changing the subject and talking about Henry again. “But I want him to believe for as long as possible so I’m just letting him at this point.”

She likes the chuckle he makes, instantly cursing herself for the reaction that takes place in her stomach. But it’s a full laugh, the crinkles not quite leaving his face even though the smile goes.

Emma realises she likes it because it’s real, it’s not the flirtatious smirks he’s been giving her. Not that she minds those, but they reveal something different to her, they’re playful not honest.

This look, this one that is lit by carpark lights on an overcast afternoon, it’s genuine.

“More effective communication than writing letters, I’m sure,” Killian comments, licking the inside of his lip as though contemplating something. “And when did little Emma Swan stop believing in Santa?”

She’s not entirely sure what makes her say what she does. Which is a lie, of course – she knows why she says it. She’s still ruffled from asking for help.

Not only that, but there’s some defensive part of her that kicks in with the soft way he looks at her, something that wants to alert him to the territory he’s wandered in to. (To make sure he doesn’t underestimate her.)

Emma’s not sure if she’s warding him off or testing his mettle but–

“I don’t even remember. I used to wish for the same thing every year in the foster system – a home,” Emma whispers, her tone still stuck gratingly between defensive and testing. It’s the first time she’s mentioned her ‘tragic backstory’ to him, it’s not exactly something you bring up with a sales assistant in the middle of a shopping mall. And she intently watches the expression on his face to see how he’ll digest it. “It never happened, so I figured if Santa didn’t believe in me I wouldn’t believe in him. I don’t want that for Henry.”

If she’s testing him, he’s definitely passing. There’s a tightness in his jaw she didn’t notice before, but there’s no pity, no shock, no horror.

“Remind me to never get on your bad side.”

The only response is laughter, this time from her, a short chuckle that is partially relief and something else, something bitter and appreciative.

It’s the realisation that’s instantaneous. It sweeps through her reluctantly, a twinge in her chest and some traitorous little thought dragging its feet in the back of her mind–

She actually likes their back and forth. She actually likes the way he takes her snipes with good humour. She can be as blunt and bitter and prickly with him as she likes and all it does is seem to pique his interest and his candour. It’s not even like he’s trying to change her mind about giving in to his many innuendos, he only seems interested in changing her mind about him, Killian Jones, the person.

“Some would say you already are,” Emma teases him back, but there’s no heat, no real threat as the knowledge that she might actually like this man weighs down her tongue and her chest, reeling her away and to the driver’s seat of her bug.

“Nonsense, I’m winning you over, I can feel it.”

\--

This year is only the second time Emma has ever had a real tree.

It had never been something she’d had growing up, and for the first few years of Henry’s life there was no way they could have forked out the cash, opting instead for a scraggly little plastic thing that didn’t drop needles – only tinsel and bells – when Henry insisted upon shaking the lower branches.

But then Henry had asked for one the year before.

She suspected it had more to do with the other children in his class talking about their tall spruce trees rather than a lack of appreciation for the one they had. Emma had been reluctant, but it wasn’t until Henry had said that it could be his present in lieu of anything else that she buckled, overwhelmed by her good-hearted kid.

They’d bought one that had barely fit through the door, bought one that filled the apartment with a crisply scented evergreen.

And Emma had still bought him several presents.

This year they buy another real one, forming some sort of excuse about needing a real tree if they were having people over – her reasoning, not his. And definitely not for the way that a real plant seemed to bring a bit more life to their apartment.

It’s freezing at the tree farm, sleety patches that make everything slip-ready on the ground beneath her boots that she should probably be paying more attention to, but she’s texting Mary Margaret instead about bringing dessert, and her old friend Ruby—

When she crashes into someone rounding the corner, nearly meeting the great squelch of mud below her.

Two arms brace her arms on impact, the hands wrapped around her phone finding themselves upon a chest.

It’s Killian.

(Because of course it is.)

“Swan,” he says by startled way of greeting.

“Seriously? You’re here too?” It sounds a little brusk, abrasive to her own ears.

Killian laughs briefly, scratching lightly at the skin behind his ear.

“Not selling anything this time, love.”

“Don’t tell me there’s a cat stuck up one of these trees that you need to rescue?”

It’s awkward between them. Well, maybe not awkward, maybe it’s awareness of whatever it is that hangs in the air that’s so much like awkwardness; thick, quiet and not as subtle as she’d like it to be. Killian knows it too, eyeing her with something a little bit too knowing in his eyes.

“I’m not actually a fireman.”

“Just in the giving spirit?” She hates the snark in her tone, the snap that implies that he wouldn’t be the type. She doesn’t really mean it, she’s just been trying so hard not to think about the moment in the carpark, about the ever-rustling distraction in her stomach that’s there now when she thinks of him.

(Not that she thinks of him.

Often, anyway.)

“No,” Killian says slowly, eyes pinching as he tries to get a read on her mood. “Liam – my brother – he’s the fireman. I’m just the younger brother that’s sleeping on his couch and getting roped into every-bloody-thing.”

“Oh.” Emma’s not sure what to say to that. And Killian looks like he’s about to ask her what he’s done to offend her so she starts walking instead, his boots falling into step beside her. “You must care about him a lot to help out as often as you do.”

The trees beside them slowly rise in size, ranging from spindly and unruly to impenetrable, fuzzy to the point where surely you’d never be able to get ornaments to wrap onto them. But it’s peaceful here, just far enough from the centre of town to not hear its hustle and its bustle and still not feel so remote. And far enough that the chilly change coming in from the north leaves more of a mark.

“He’s a stubborn arse.” There’s a mixture of irritation and fondness in there that she imagines must be a sibling thing. It carefully gives nothing away, however, and all she has is the inflection he uses to go by.

“You must have a thing for stubborn.”

The words are out of her mouth before she can think better of them. They sounded innocent enough to her brain right up until the point that they left her mouth, her own ears twinging with the retort. Her ears flinch and her eyes twitch to meet his startled ones, only to startle herself with what they see there, and they look away just as quickly.

Internally she chastises herself – what’s the point of ignoring the carpark revelation if she insists upon reliving it. Why does she keep bantering back with him?

(Why when it’s starting to mean something does she keep carrying on with it?)

“How’s the lad?”

Emma is eternally thankful that he changes the topic to something she’s more comfortable with.

“He’s much better, he’s running around here somewhere. Apparently watching Home Alone for the fifth time in a week was enough to heal him. I’ve promised to get him to feel better by buying a tree a few days early,” Emma says, gesturing at the towering firs and pines around them.

“Will his father be around for Christmas?”

That comfort doesn’t last.

“I wondered when you were going to ask me about that,” – is Emma’s slightly acerbic response, pulling her navy beanie further down over the tips of her ears.

Emma would love to be able to say she’s surprised by Killian question, but honestly she’s been waiting for him to bring it up for a while now. Had been waiting since he’d been flirting with her and Henry had run up to her shouting ‘Mom’, had been waiting since she had left a sick Henry with him.

“I’m merely curious, love; I’ve not seen the man, nor have you ever mentioned him.”

“Yeah, well, there’s good reason for that.”

The pinch in Killian’s eyes is back, this time only looking a little sorry for bringing it up, but she suspects he knew this question would be pushing something before he said it. Emma’s not an idiot, she allows his flirtations too much for someone who would be involved with someone else – she’s not one of her skips after all. But, well, with a six-year-old son, it kind of begs the question.

Emma puts a stop to their aimless amble, crossing her arms so that the red of her leather jacket tightens across her shoulders.

“Henry’s father isn’t in his life and I haven’t seen him since he set me up and left me in jail.”

And suddenly it’s just like the carpark. She’s testing him again, waiting for him to become uncertain about her, about the stubborn orphan with a criminal record and slightly wounding taste in men.

Except, that he doesn’t. His jaw clenches as though he wants to know more, wants to know about how it is that someone you’re involved with could send you to jail.

(Honestly, she’s still asking herself that question seven years later.)

Killian takes a step towards her, his feet squelching in the ground and she doesn’t move, Emma watching as his body sways into her with purpose – he’s not just trying to get to her metaphorically. The space between them is a sudden request for something she can’t quite put her finger on. His eyes are so blue when they’re not under the fluorescent lighting of the shopping mall, bright in a way that reflects the clear if chilly day. It’s distracting. Though not as distracting as the way he doesn’t shy away from her answer.

It doesn’t scare him off, not even the slightest bit.

Emma can’t decide whether that’s better or worse, to have the truth of her and Henry’s past bare before him and to only see some sort of anger in his eyes. It’s meant to scare him away; it’s supposed to show the chink in his armour, that she’s too complicated and wonting or something–

“By choice?” He asks with only a whisper, the warmth of his breath showing in the air around them.

“Yeah, and now it’s my choice,” a warning still in her tone. “We’re better off without him; we’re good just the two of us.”

He still doesn’t back away from it. He does flinch at the implication, though, at the idea that there’s no room in her life for him. Emma flinches at it too – she doesn’t mean to regret her own words, it’s what she wants after all, isn’t it? Just her and Henry and their Christmas tree with the paper angel on the top that Henry had coloured in himself?

But if that’s so, why does the end of her own sentence feel like a lie?

(Why does it hurt?

Why does it kick at the very meaning of Christmas?)

And the thought of why terrifies Emma, it slinks down her throat, sticking to the sides of her insides as she tries to swallow it away in the middle of a freezing, slushy pine tree farm.

“At least you have what’s important,” she sees him glance behind her in the middle of his thoughts, just as a small body collides with her legs. “—your son.”

It’s Henry this time that slams into her, his tiny hand searching for hers.

“I’ve found it, Mom!”

“Found what, kid?”

Emma grabs his hand only for him to tug on it insistently, as Emma reluctantly tears her attention from Killian’s face.

“The tree. It’s the best one here, we have to get it – come on!”

\--

She doesn’t see Killian for a while after that.

Not on purpose, she still parks in the same carpark when she forgets Christmas crackers, still passes by the Fire Department’s stall, but he’s not there. He’s still not there when she takes Henry to pick out something for Mary Margaret.

And even Henry looks for him as they round the bottom of the escalators.

(She swears she finds herself at the shops more in December than she ever does for the rest of the months combined.)

Emma tries not to feel that keen sting at his sudden absence. Tries instead to just reconfirm with herself that human beings are unreliable and this is why she never gets involved, tries to remind herself that a few odd occasions with him not volunteering for his brother doesn’t mean something, let alone anything.

It doesn’t work very well.

But there are far too many things on her mind.

Like the fact that it’s December twenty-first and Henry is dressed up as a Lost Boy, running around the school hall with other kids from his class, little brown hats on their heads and feathers for swords. Two of the boys have already snapped their ‘swords’ across the middle as they were half pretending and half actually fighting, and Emma nearly laughs at Mary Margaret’s tone; the tone of a teacher trying to discipline while very aware they’re in a hall packed full of parents.

Henry had decided this year he wanted to be a part of the school Christmas recital.

Emma still finds herself uncomfortable at these things, doesn’t really like to get involved too much unless she has to – she’s still a foreigner to this world of soccer moms and parent teacher associations. And so, she’s just about to take her seat and settle herself in for a long night of adorable if off key performances when she sees the last person she was expecting.

Killian Jones is standing off to the side and under the portraits of principals gone by, caught in the middle of a conversation between a tall curly-haired man and a smaller, petite woman. He looks deeply uncomfortable, or bored maybe, taking a deep breath before looking around the room for reprieve.

And he catches Emma looking at him.

She doesn’t look away, keeping his eye and lifting one hand from her crossed arms to wave hello as a string of children dressed as sea creatures holding hands run in front of her.

He smiles something short and brief, lacking in its usual buoyancy but not unfriendly; it’s more eyebrows and lip than eyes and dimples. Before she can make her way over to him, however, there’s a call for the parents to take their seats and he’s being dragged away by his companions.

Killian lasts about half an hour before he wanders outside, slipping out one of the side doors as a bunch of the older kids are trying to parody current events to surprising comedic effect, some small girl in an orange wig far more amusing than the president she’s mimicking.

Emma wants to follow him.

Some part of her is practically itching to get up and talk to him. Which is surely ridiculous, she had been intentionally trying to distance herself only a week ago but now she’s no longer concentrating on what it is tiny Vladimir Putin is saying, only on the near-pulsing sensation telling her to get up and out of her seat.

So she does, swinging her red woolly coat on and sneaking out before the outside air hits her.

Which is a good thing – it’s snowing.

And not just sleet or mushy rain, but proper White Christmas snow. The good stuff, the kind that’s soft and sits on her sleeves without melting, the kind that almost bounces off her beanie as she puts it on. The kind that songs and movies and baked goods are named after.

Emma’s heart lightens at the sight.

It doesn’t take long to find him, he hasn’t gone very far at all actually, he’s only leaning over one of the brick walls alongside a set of stairs to look out contemplatively at the falling snow. Emma sidles alongside him, leaning with her arms out in front of her to briefly catch the snow in her upturned palm.

“Swan.”

“Killian. Didn’t expect to find you here.”

“Aye, well, Liam is determined to have a finger in every bloody pie. The fire department is sponsoring the whole performance night. Personally, I just think he’s trying to impress the librarian.”

The snow builds up in her hands, cold and slowly melting, turning the skin of her palms a slight shade of pink. She probably should have brought her gloves, but she loves snow and she’s already forming a plan to make a Peter Pan snowman with Henry using his costume to do so when they get home tonight.

“So, if Liam’s the fireman, what exactly do you do?” Emma asks, letting more snow fall into her hands.

“Not much of anything at the moment. Only moved here a month ago and I’m still trying to find my feet, as it were…”

It feels odd to have Killian be the one to let the conversation fall away, usually that’s Emma’s job, normally it’s Emma trying to limit the impact of their recent encounters.

Tonight, apparently it’s his turn.

“Yeah, I know what that’s like.”

The snow doesn’t make a sound at all as it drifts, and she still can make out the happenings going on inside, a round of chuckles before jingly belled music kicks in.

Emma empties her hand of the newly acquired mush before letting a few soft flakes fall to her palm once more. She doesn’t know where the impulse comes from (or more, she ignores where it comes from), but turns to Killian, gently blowing the little bits of snow into his unsuspecting face.

He looks taken aback, a faux look of malcontent arching its brow at her as she giggles.

(Yes, she thinks, she definitely likes this back and forth of theirs.)

“Come on, it’s not Christmas without snow.”

“I think you’ll find the folk in the southern hemisphere would have something to say about that, love.”

Emma glares at him.

“Liam and I spent a Christmas in Australia once. Bloody humid is what it was. Liam forgot to put on sunscreen and burnt to a crisp, like every other English tourist on the beach.”

“Are you trying to ruin this for me?”

Killian chuckles a bit, using his fingers to brush some of the snow from her shoulder which seems a little pointless as it’s nowhere near close to stopping its gentle tumble, and the rest of her is covered in the white stuff. She thinks it’s a move done out of comfort for himself more than anything else, removing his hand slowly when he realises he might be loitering there.

There’s something off with him today, she realises, something brooding and sullen on his face that he’s trying to smile through.

But it’s not exactly working.

And she’d be an idiot to not notice it must have something to do with Liam, his brother’s name cropping up more and more in conversation tonight than it usually does.

“What’s wrong with you today?”

Killian seems more startled by her question than the puff of snow she’d sent his way – surely he doesn’t think he’s being subtle, surely he doesn’t think she wouldn’t care.

“We’ve all got our demons, Swan.”

She’s sure to anyone else it might sound a little ominous but it’s not that that worries her, watching closely as his hand moves to scratch behind his ear – it sits uncertainly in her chest when she realises how little she actually knows about him. About this man that she has been inching closer and closer to for several weeks and having no idea of how much of a scuppered life he may have lead. She served up little bits of herself when he showed interest but he’s cleverly diverted her away from knowing parts of himself; giving away titbits but never enough to say with any confidence that she knows him.

Well, she does know him, but– 

Emma doesn’t know why he sleeps on Liam’s couch, or why he moved to Storybrooke, or why it is that guilt and reverence and shadow sit on his face. That’s he’s kept all tucked far out of reach.

And it isn’t because she doesn’t care – because of course she cares, she’s just been focusing on protecting Henry (focusing on protecting herself) and she knows sometimes that comes out a little blunt, a little coarse, a little mechanism left behind from a time long before Henry.

But surely she should have got more out of him than that?

“That’s all I get?” She tries to joke that small truth out of him. “I’m a twenty-seven-year old orphan, single mother and ex-con – if you think it’s going to change my opinion of you I wouldn’t be so certain.”

Emma says it to him in the only way she ever knows how to say these things about herself – like unfeeling facts, like they don’t hurt her anymore. And she says them to try and bring that levity back to his face, only it barely works. All she gets in reply at first is the small upturn of his lips.

She’s so often on the back foot with him, pushing and pushing back against that thick thing that insists upon being between them but she doesn’t like this; doesn’t like this sad look on his face that is everything but an actual frown. It pinches at her, the one that sits there with practiced nonchalance.

She misses the genuine smile, as much as she knows it terrifies and fidgets through her.

“That’s an awful lot of faith you’re putting in me, Swan.”

Killian whispers softly to her but the words do more damage than their volume. They hold so much truth to them, so much self-deprecation and uncertainty and the feeling aims straight for her heart, the muscles that pull her blood to and fro cramping in her chest.

Because she does trust him and she has no idea when that happened.

“Henry always says that I’m always looking for something to be wrong,” she says to indirectly answer him, not failing to note how he’s diverted the conversation back onto her.

“And are you?”

“I’m trying really hard not to be.”

Another truth, another ill-rounded confession, another thing that thickens the air between them.

She can see the very moment snap in his eyes, when he decides to stop beating around the Christmas bush and be bold with her. Can see it in the deep breath he takes and the way he steps closer to her, little bits of snow sticking to his eyebrows.

“Emma, it must be obvious to you by now how much I fancy you, beyond trying to sell you bloody calendars,” Killian begins, and even though Emma sees the conversation coming she doesn’t know what to say either, mouth falling open with half words on the tip of her tongue (to stop him, to encourage him, she’s not sure). “You have your reasons for everything but I never want you to doubt mine.”

His words are simple, stinging in her chest and for a moment all she can hear is the blood in her ears and the echoed sound of several small children singing ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’.

“I don’t even know what your reasons are. You’ve managed to avoid telling me anything about yourself.” She’s a little accusatory, guilt stinging her for her recent revelation and trying to tell him that she wants to know.

(She can’t believe she wants to know.)

Her words make him look down to their feet before he replies.

“I’ve done things I’m not proud of,” Killian explains, looking up and straight into her eyes. “I’m trying to be a better man. That’s the man I want you to know.”

Words, she needs to find the right words. There are so many things that she wants to say to that, to argue that she doesn’t care who he used to be, that she still wants to know him – past and present and future combined, like some trilogy of Christmas ghosts.

But she can barely keep track of what thing they’re talking about – are they talking about his past, are they talking about Emma doubting him?

(And they talking about something more?)

“I’m not good at… fast.” It’s the best she can come up with, the only way she can think to describe the weight of what it is about him that tempts her and frightens her in equal measure. And she hopes it also tells him she doesn’t doubt him.

Not even a little bit, not even when she should.

It’s not a look of pity he regales her with, but one of gentle understanding. One of fear.

And it’s that look that makes Emma realise that maybe, despite his romantic nature and bold flirtations, Killian Jones is not used to love either. Not used to that welcome agitation that keeps happening to them.

They’ve always been on even footing, however it’s then, standing in the grounds of her son’s school with snow falling all around them that she really truly feels that footing, feels this tangible terrain, this mirrored thing between them.

“You don’t need to be, Swan, I’m not asking for that. I’m merely saying that I’m in this for the long haul if you want me to be, regardless of our pasts.”

She wishes she could look away, could blink from the sheer, yearning honesty staring back at her.

It’s overwhelming, uncomfortable, and yet–

Emma’s known the ball has been in her court since she met him, but there’s something so different to hearing him lay it all out like this for her. She doesn’t want him to jump if she says jump, but the reassurance he gives her surges through something in her stomach, until she feels as though her lungs might be submerged with the sensation.

He’s given her an out, an opportunity to say no that she doesn’t even want to use, despite the litany of excuses she’s already armed with and—

She wants to kiss him.

The snow keeps falling in his hair and her lips are cold – no doubt his are too – if she just pulled him down to her she could change that, could ripple warmth from lip to toe tip for the pair of them. But she doesn’t. She ignores the urge, looks for something else to say instead.

Only, Emma’s not sure what to say, she looks for something, hoping to find it in the blue of his eyes. It’s the break of applause from inside that distracts her. It snaps her out of it, abruptly feeling too overwhelmed to stay out here any longer.

“I should go back in; Henry will be on in a minute.”

Killian looks a little disappointed, but nods as she turns to go back inside, all at once desperate to shake the restlessness from her wrists. She’s nearly at the door when something stops her in her snowy tracks, something that pulls her back, wincing to herself and spinning on the spot only to have Killian nearly walk into her.

That thick thing still hangs between them.

That feeling of something, of maybe, of what if in the air.

He stands so still in front of her and she realises that now he seems so uncertain. Or more certain, perhaps; more certain of who she is, more careful with how he wants to approach that.

It’s not a thought that sits comfortably with Emma, rattling around like the chill the snow sends up her spine from her frozen hands. She’s spent the last few weeks telling herself all the reasons she shouldn’t trust him and ignoring the real reason she’s scared of him. And it had been working.

Until now.

“Are you spending Christmas with Liam?” Emma asks, crossing her arms tightly against herself.

“Aye, but his oven broke a few days ago and is having a lot of trouble getting it fixed. I suspect it’ll be fairly uneventful,” Killian replies, a curiosity in his tone.

Emma can feel the words bubbling up before she says them, can feel her brain trying to put a halt to them before they reach her tongue. She’d love to be able to blame it on Christmas, on the spirit of the season overtaking her keener senses.

When really it’s far more than that.

(And they both know it.)

The words are careful when she says them, she says them slowly and clearly and with meaning, as though she isn’t freaked out by what she’s really asking–

“Why don’t you join us for Christmas?”

\--

When Christmas Day itself finally rolls around it’s to a hefty dose of snow outside and to Henry jumping on her bed well before the dawn, stage-whispering to ask when does it stop being too early to open presents.

There are far too many presents.

There are a handful for Henry from her, from Santa (which he gets to open before the others arrive), several for Mary Margaret and David and their friend Ruby. She hasn’t scrimped on getting Elsa something – her neighbour and occasional babysitter – her presents sitting right next to ones for Liam and Killian.

There may be too many presents, but at least she knows she got them right, unlike the—

“Goose.”

It’s one of the first things Mary Margaret says to her after the pleasantries and the taking of coats, and the smothering Henry with hugs (and even more presents).

“Yes, goose.”

“You bought a goose for Christmas?”

Said goose sits in the middle of the kitchen counter, sitting in her brand new roasting pan where Emma was in the middle of preparing it when the doorbell rang.

“They were out of turkeys!” Emma argues, her pitch rising in mock defence.

“When did you go shopping for turkeys?”

“…Yesterday?”

“Emma!”

David is in stitches as he listens to the two of them, slinging his arm around Emma’s shoulders and kissing her on the temple while she tries not to laugh at Mary Margaret’s indignation. She loves these two people, that she can say with complete confidence, the two best friends she’s ever had beginning to argue about the difference in poultry like the old married couple they are in the middle of her kitchen.

The others arrive soon afterwards, Ruby adorned in an enormous amount of red just like any other day of the year, Elsa wearing just as much silver and blue as she does on a regular basis – arms laden with even more gifts.

It’s the ring of the door that signals Killian and Liam that she’s nervous about.

Killian had eagerly accepted her invitation; he gave the most convincing smile she’d witnessed all night outside that hall. The wide grin that greets her when the door swings open is even bigger and infectious, their ‘Happy Christmases’ a welcome echo in her foyer.

(Liam she notices is a little wary of her at first, glancing cautiously between her and Killian as if trying to get the size of her, as though trying to decide if she’ll be a good influence on him.

And Emma suddenly understands why Killian might gripe at and admire his brother all at the same time.)

The noise in her apartment increases ten-fold as new introductions are made, as old friendships unite and as Christmas fills every nook and cranny of her little home. There’s a goose in the oven instead of a turkey, an Ikea step stool and Henry’s desk chair at the dining table because they simply didn’t have enough seats, and when Elsa comes back from the balcony from making a phone call to her sister she treads snow back through the apartment.

This is what she looks forward to, this is why she spends all December trying to make it as perfect as possible. Christmas bonus or no Christmas bonus.

“Something smells delicious.”

Emma’s midway through pouring various glasses of champagne and juice when she notices Killian has followed her through to the kitchen, a playful smile settled back in his eyes.

“Easy, tiger, it’s just the food.”

The grin stays on his face as he edges closer, Emma suddenly very aware when his arm almost does but doesn’t quite brush up against hers.

“Thank you for inviting us, Emma.”

“You’re welcome.” She doesn’t look up to him, focusing instead on the rise of bubbles as she pours, careful not to let them topple over the edge. “How else am I going to get rid of all this food.”

“Henry is a growing boy, I’m sure he’d manage.”

Emma places a glass down gently, the clink of it somehow loud between them. Killian is wearing that palpable look again, that soft regard mixed in with the jovial that she struggles to look away from. Emma’s concession to the festive day was to wear her red turtleneck, but Killian hasn’t bothered at all – same old black, same old leather jacket. But there’s a hopeful look on his face that reminds her of Christmas, like Henry did at 5 o’clock that morning, so much so that he may as well be wearing an ugly jumper all covered in felt.

“I was surprised that you asked.”

“You and me both.”

“You didn’t have to, love.”

“I know. I wanted to.”

Her words are quiet, but he hears them. The words mean a lot to her, and he hears that too. There are walls around her that she’s trying to pull down – for Henry’s sake, for her sake – and even though it’s been years now of weakening them, the way that Killian asks to be let inside does more infrastructure damage than anything else.

The way he looks, and hears and listens and cares.

Neither of them are moving.

That something is stuck between them again – that one that never seems to go away – distracting her from everything and—

“Mom! Killian! Hurry up,” Henry shouts, barging into the kitchen. “We’re opening the presents.”

He’s out as soon as he’s in, Emma and Killian bashfully collecting the glasses in their hands and carrying them out to the living room.

And if Emma mutters—

“You’ve got great timing, kid.”

Killian is the only one that hears her.

Emma slings on the apparently necessary Santa hat to give out the presents, handing them around the room to various exclamations and ripples of laughter that follow the tearing of things. Henry is on her heels, finding it is just as necessary to follow her around as Santa’s little helper. And it all becomes slightly more difficult when piles of paper build on the floorboards to obstruct her path from tree to recipient.

That warm little part of her, the part that Henry lit in her all those years ago, sits restlessly in her chest every time she gives a present out.

And it’s sappy, and it’s ridiculous.

But if you can’t be sappy at Christmas when can you be?

Emma finally manages to sit down – on the floor next to Killian because she doesn’t have enough couch space for the amount of guests – when the timer on the oven goes off.

She sighs, heavily, because she hasn’t even opened anything herself yet but Mary Margaret beats her, insisting she’ll get up to check on the vegetables. But as Mary Margaret gets up everyone else insists on helping and being useful too, and David decides that he should check on the bird, and Ruby and Elsa collect everyone’s glasses for top ups until—

It’s just her and Killian.

Smiling at one another and sitting next to her Christmas tree watching the noise drift from one room to another.

He’s pushing a present towards her before she even has a chance to flounder at the way they’re looking at each other, something in a large paper bag glittered with snowflakes and reindeer.

“Happy Christmas, Emma.”

It’s from him, she can tell by the loopy handwriting on the tag and the barely contained smirk on Killian’s face. She’s thanking him before she’s even thought about what that cheeky grin might mean. Emma should probably have been able to guess what it was though before she’d taken it out of the bag. Not only for the shape of the damn thing but for the way he leans into her as she puts her hand into it.

It’s the calendar.

The charity Christmas ‘Hot Firemen of Storybrooke feat. Kittens’ calendar.

“You just couldn’t resist could you?” Emma asks rhetorically, thwacking him gently for his audacity and knowing full well with the way Killian pulls his lower lip between his teeth cheekily, that no, he really couldn’t.

“Will you at least look inside this time?”

The calendar isn’t at all like she expects.

Yes, there are shirtless firemen, attractive enough and with unnecessarily toned muscles, kittens of all shapes and sizes and colours climbing around them. But what she wasn’t expecting was for Killian to have printed and pasted his own snickering face onto every single photo. January through June, July through December his face sits gleaming back at her and he hasn’t even bothered to shake up which photo, it’s the exact same one even for March where there are three firemen in the picture, but–

Emma bursts out laughing.

She loves it.

As she turns each page to further appreciate how mismatched his face is with some of the scenarios, she laughs harder, something deep and exhausting from her middle until her whole body shakes with it.

“Do you like it?” Killian hums, leaning in to speak lowly to her.

“My birthday is in October, by the way,” she says through a chuckle, seeing the recognition of a conversation weeks ago alight in his eyes. Emma flips to the month in question to see the image of someone with Killian’s face and a much darker skinned torso climbing down a tree with two kittens resting on his biceps. “If I’d known it looked like this inside I would have bought one ages ago.”

“Is that a compliment, love?”

He’s fishing on purpose but in amongst that there is such a rosy look in his eyes, a blue sincerity that she’s so easily caught up in. And it’s then she realises how close they are, how little space exists between them as they sit on her shag pile rug almost shoulder-to-shoulder. And even though she’s slightly out of breath from laughing, a puff still caught in her lungs, there’s an ache in her ribcage that has nothing to do with a full-bellied giggle, and only a little to do with the way Christmas sits all around them.

“Maybe.”

She wants to kiss him.

The want is so clear, so forceful in her chest that she physically has to stop herself from leaning into him, from stopping the watch of his blinking eyelashes and itching that little bit higher to knock her lips to his. But her brain pulls her back again, reciting reason upon reason as to why she shouldn’t, casting her mind back to snowy confessions and carpark shock. It’s dangerous to trust anyone let alone him, he feels too familiar and surely that can’t be a good sign, she has Henry to worry about, he–

But one little voice, one tiny statement so much quieter than the rest offers up its opinion and suddenly it’s the only one Emma can hear.

What if?

 

She waits for the voice to repeat itself – twice, three times – and then she’s had enough.

She’s too happy, his face too open, her heart too filled with Christmas and that thick thing she can never seem to find a name for.

 

It barely takes anything at all, just the quiet tilt and capture of his mouth as she moves into him, his shoulder pressed against hers, Christmas lights shining on his face–

And the second their lips touch that urge in her chest thanks her, that little voice shuts down all the others until the only thing she can hear is Killian’s quick intake of breath and the sheer satisfaction that courses through her.

It should be a mistake.

It should certainly at least feel like one.

To kiss someone she barely knows on the middle of her floor at Christmas, with both their families a room away and suddenly arguing about brandy butter versus brandy custard.

(Maybe the problem is that she does know him, and too quickly.)

It should feel hasty and ill-thought through.

The problem is that it is thought through, the problem is that even though she barely knows him this isn’t the first time she’s had the impulse to kiss him, it’s just the only time she’s listened.

(She should have done it sooner.)

Emma pulls back, her lips slipping from his as she feels fingers drift faintly into her hair to dislodge the Santa hat, the easing touch suddenly making her hyperaware of every movement between the two of them.

Of every tiny fraction of him pressed against her and around her.

Of his legs next to hers, his fingers on her scalp, her nose bumping his.

She kisses him again, more insistent this time, desperate to give in and to sate that happy bubbly feeling she can’t dislodge, nor the thick thud from her middle that seems to be creating them. Killian’s body twists into hers as he kisses her back – something sweet and keen and nowhere near enough when, with his lips, he pulls her more into his space. His fake hand resting innocently enough on her thigh and knocking the calendar is more about supporting himself but it encourages her to grip the lapels of his jacket, leather creasing beneath her knuckles as her tongue slips briefly against his—

He tastes like rum balls.

And Emma can tell Killian’s holding back, unsure of what it means, unsure if the fact that her hand drifting to his jaw when she kisses him once more, and deeper, and again should tell him anything.

Unsure if he’ll get another chance to kiss her.

Truth be told she’s not sure what it means either. Well, that’s not strictly true. His nose presses from one side of her own nose to the other, followed by a heavier slide of his lips – that’s when she realises that she’s not running from this feeling, this thick throb in her chest. She’s not sure how she could ever think this was a bad idea, how the thought of his scruff against her cheek or his fingertips on her jaw weren’t enough to sway her before.

There’s a sudden clang from the direction of the kitchen.

A loud slam of metal to wood as something dropping to the floor makes Emma jump.

Mary Margaret is standing in the doorway of the kitchen, mouth agape and a thankfully empty baking tray at her feet.

“Sorry, I just – I, um, I was going to ask – this tray, but I’ll—you’re busy so…”

Mary Margaret is back in the kitchen before she’s finished her stumbled thought.

Despite the strange feeling of being caught, Emma’s not embarrassed. Surprised, yes, mouth open for both reasons of shock and of reacquainting her lungs with air.

Killian doesn’t look it either when she turns back to him but his cheeks are flushed, pointy elf-like ears just as red – but it’s the look in his eyes that grabs her. They’re dazed and reverent, heavy with something she’s not ready to put a name to and Emma is suddenly terrified he’ll say something too meaningful, something as weighty as that gaze. Just because she’s not running doesn’t mean she’s not scared.

She needs to pull away, but doesn’t want to, she wants to kiss him again but shouldn’t, so she finds a compromise, hand slipping to rest against his chest, her forehead pressed quietly to his own.

“I swear if you quote Mariah Carey at me right now you don’t get your gift.”

Killian’s eyes light up at that, the smile barely shaking away how disoriented he looks.

(How disoriented she feels with the tip of his thumb running traces to her cheekbone.)

“I wouldn’t dare, Swan. It seems I’ve been very good this year I’d hate to break that streak now.”

Emma scoffs at him, absently licking her lips and crawling across the floor to grab the parcel under the tree that is his from her, before settling back next to him in her previous spot.

Henry rushes back in just as Killian is fingering the bow, flopping into her lap to talk animatedly about the book Mary Margaret had given him. Emma smiles at Killian over the top of Henry’s head, the others all piling back into the room and still debating the best way to baste the goose.

(Baster, she’d forgotten to buy a baster.)

The room is filled with noise again, animated chatter lit by the Christmas tree, the glasses of champagne, the snow outside. She’s barely had a moment to process the kiss, hasn’t got the chance to think about how her lips are still tingling, prickled by both his stubble and her own fluttering heart.

Mary Margaret is in the middle of a conversation with Ruby and Elsa but sending poignant looks in her direction, very unsubtly mouthing what looks distinctly like the word ‘friend’. And while Liam and David keep arguing stubbornly (though they’re actually in agreement) about something or other that might be the state of the roads in the snow, Emma can’t help but think that this is what it’s all about.

This is Christmas.

Her cheeks are warm as she presses one to the top of Henry’s hair, wrapping her arms around his middle as she struggles not to laugh at the way Killian tries to avoid tearing the paper.

He glares at her for the chuckle she gives him when Henry tries to tell him he’s doing it wrong.

And the air smells like a roast but she can still taste rum and cocoa on her lips, all of it mingling together until that overwhelming and familiar feeling overtakes her. Familiar and yet not so familiar that she’s used to it (if she ever could be), the one that fills her entire being – that one that is being surrounded by those she cares about and those who care about her in return.

People she can buy presents for.

And maybe her heart grows a little more with the thought that she just might get to keep this – this feeling, this warmth, this make-shift family – long after Christmas Day.

**Author's Note:**

> To the most wonderful Clare I know – Merry Christmas!  
> Love from your not very secret Secret Santa


End file.
